This is the fifth in a series of blogs about New Year’s Resolutions, Setting Goals and Achieving Results.
Let’s revise the first four just to see how you have measured up to your goal setting and achieving results so far.
At the beginning of the year, I asked you if you had made any New Year Resolutions and how you planned to keep them? I suggested that you make only four resolutions at the most to start with, so that it would be more realistic to achieve them. In order to begin the process of achieving your goals, I recommended prioritising and concentrating on the most important one first, resolving it within the first three months and then move on to the others later.
Some questions I asked you were:
• Why set these goals or change habits now?
• What was it about that particular time that made you want to change that habit?
• Did you have a plan?
• What was the plan and how were you going to achieve your goal or overcome that bad habit?
I suggested that if you fell off the wagon, you get back up and try again, as it was only the first month of the year. By acknowledging that goals take time to achieve and bad habits take longer to break, I suggested that persistence was the clue to success. If you faltered again, try again … and again ….
My next blog, I posed more questions, making some suggestions and challenging some of your thoughts.
• Did you decide which New Year’s resolution you were going to work on for the next three months?
• What difference would it make to your life when you conquered your goal or broke that bad habit? I suggested you write down the goal so you could refer to it, so it was not just an idea in your head but became a visual representation as well. This would help reinforce the image of succeeding in achieving your goal. I also asked if there was something further to think about or review if you were not beginning to achieve your goal as you would like to.
• Old habits are hard to break; new habits are hard to integrate in your life. But if you really want to meet your target, it is definitely worth the effort. The clue is to do it over and over again, until you achieve it. Hard work? Yes! But if you want to achieve it, it’s up to you. Because you are only working on one resolution at a time, it is going to be much easier to achieve. Don’t think of it as a New Year’s resolution, think of it as a step you’re taking to improve your life every day.
• Reinforce this mantra in your mind. If I have a bad day, too bad, so sad. I am not waiting another year to start again; the time to be persistent is now. I am committed to achieving this goal or breaking this bad habit. The hard work will be worth it; by achieving this goal for myself the advantages I will have in my life will be many.
In my next blog I asked how you were going with your plan, and if you had joined some programme in a group setting or instead were going it alone to get results. Why would I bother repeating the word plan? Because goal setting and breaking bad habits can be difficult to achieve. Some do better by joining with others for support; some people do well by going it alone. However, people who really achieve their goals most successfully are the people who: write down a plan, review it, maintain focus by referring to the written plan until the goal/s are achieved. Dare I say it again? Definitely! Persistence is the clue!
In March, I challenged you to let go of the past. The past is exactly that, past, over and done with. If you really must think about events or situations where you have ‘stuffed up’ parts of your life, think of it this way:
• What would you do differently this time? What have you learnt from your mistakes that will assist you to make your life, present and future, productive. How will you ensure you will not make the same mistake again?
• What commitments have you made to yourself to keep improving on a daily basis for three months at a time? Just think, in one year, you will have changed four things in your life. This might include changing or eliminating bad habits or adding something productive into your life. Over the course of your lifetime, you can become the person you have always wanted to be.
Here we are in April. I have given you some leeway, some extra time to travel these new paths. If you did not achieve your goal or completely drop or change that bad habit, I built in some extra ‘try again’ time. Some habits and plans take longer than three months. Of course we all know that. However, what progress have you made in the past three months? Look over your written plan and congratulate yourself on how far you have come. If there is anything that can be improved, just alter your written plan and continue on.
• You do not have to wait until next New Year’s to make plans and change habits. You can make resolutions to improve your life at any time throughout the year.
• Don’t forget the written plan to get you started.
• Make a commitment to yourself to implement one good habit into your life every three months. Focus on that until you achieve it.
• Action, action and more action are the key words to keep in mind when you are seeking your desired results. Don’t just dream about it – do it!
• If you do not achieve your goal the first time, remember, ‘too bad, so sad’. Try again.
• Persistence is the clue; if it is not working, then review it and do it another way. Just never give up.
Another of Einstein’s gems of wisdom is A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. Seriously now, who could argue with Einstein?

A good place to start taking control of your life is to motivate yourself by recharging all that is you; physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally.

Recharge simply means;
• Charging yourself up with enthusiasm
• Charging yourself up with energy, and fulfilling your life by replacing all negative thinking with positive thinking.
• Believing in your dreams and goals irrespective of what other people tell you.
• Acting as though you already live the life you want, until your dream turns into a reality.
• Constantly reaffirming your goals on a regular basis
• Motivating yourself, and not relying on other people to do it for you
• Not just wishing you were motivated, but doing it! Get into action irrespective of how hard it might be for you and take control of your life and have fun.

Charger

Imagine charging a little motorized toy car while the kids are looking on with anticipation, just wanting to take over and do it for themselves. Then off speeds the car, going forward, backwards, spinning around, crashing into things, missing things, depending on who is at the controls. You have to wonder sometimes who is having the most fun, the kids or the adults. Finally the kids get their own toy and do it for themselves, having heaps of fun until the battery runs down and needs to be re-charged.

The car is much like us really. We can be charged up with enthusiasm, motivation, believing in ourselves and our abilities, then bang, we crash into something and become negative, upset and give up, or find it hard to dodge those family members, friends or obnoxious workmates who dominate us and take control, driving us in the direction they want to go, expecting that we will perform according to their ideologies and way of thinking.

What is your reaction to this? Do you give up the reigns of your life and allow someone else to take over? Or, are you assertive and diplomatically put people in their place? Or, do you perhaps feel like the little child who wants to drive and control his own toy but the grown up is doing it for him, still telling him how to do it after he already knows how, and needs to try it for himself and learn by his own experience.

The car needs to be re-charged on a regular basis for it to work, just like we need to be re-charged to be ourselves, to make us work effectively, if we are going to achieve our dreams and be assertive in life. Being fulfilled in life means achieving our dreams, not someone else’s. It is about being in control of what we do. It is about being responsible for ourselves. It is about developing into the person we want to be so that we can achieve our own dreams.

If you are not in control of your own life at the moment, then a good place to start is by looking within yourself, building yourself up by recharging yourself into a positive frame of mind. Concentrate on yourself first, and then when you are ready, you can assertively tell people to stop interfering in your life. Do it at a comfortable pace so you can plan it before acting on it.

The past is exactly that, past, over and done with. If you really must think about events or situations where you have ‘stuffed up’ parts of your life, think of it this way:
• What would you do differently this time?
• What have you learnt from your mistakes that will assist you to make your present and future productive while not making the same mistake again?
• What commitments have you made to yourself to keep improving on a daily basis for three months at a time? Just think, in one year, you will have changed four things in your life. This might include changing bad habits or giving something up that is not productive in your life. Over the course of your life, you can just become that person you have always wanted to be.

Firstly, let’s forget about New Year’s resolutions and aim to improve our lives by developing good habits throughout the year. Don’t forget the written plan to get you started.
Secondly, make a commitment to yourself to implement one good habit into your life every three months. Focus on that until you achieve it, even if it goes over the three months if necessary.
Thirdly, whatever you did before which did not work, start afresh. Try a new way of doing it. Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Fourthly, document how you feel when you achieve your goal for the day and when you do not achieve it. Check the patterns out; what are they saying to you? What are the triggers that set you off when you did not succeed? What supports and encourages you to keep going?
Fifthly, action, action and more action are the key words to keep in mind when you are seeking your desired results.
Sixthly, if you do not achieve your goal the first time, remember ‘too bad, so sad’. Try again. Another of Einstein’s gems of wisdom is A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

New Year’s Resolutions 2013

How are you going with your New Year’s resolution? Keeping to them? Or have some been broken already? Why is it so hard to keep them? Year after year, people make them; you can hear the words that hang in the air every January 1st? ‘This time I am going to achieve it, no matter what!’ Yet, before you know it, it’s back to the same old pattern and the year is half-gone. ‘Oh well, there is always next year to try again, isn’t there?’

Let’s look at four points (yes, that’s all, four) that might help at this time of year.
1. How many resolutions did you make? Okay, so you’ve decided you want to make major changes. How realistic is this? If you do it one small step at a time, you have a much better chance of making it work. Do not have more than four resolutions per year; four is the maximum.
2. Prioritise. Which one is the most important for you to achieve right now? Pick one and that is what we are going to work on first. The others will be on hold for the moment.
3. The one that you chose as your top priority will be the one on which we are going to concentrate. For three months, keeping that resolution is going to be your goal. Focus intensely on resolving this one issue ‘til the end of March 2013. It doesn’t matter what it is – whether it’s losing weight, giving up smoking, increasing study time – the process you go through is what’s important. Think about these points:
• Why now? What is it about this particular time that makes you want to change this habit?
• How are you going to do this? Do you have a plan? What is the plan? Have you joined a program like ‘quit smoking’? Do you plan to use patches to quit smoking? If weight is your concern, have you chosen a personal trainer? Are you going to a gym or signing up for some program to lose weight? The details of which group to join for losing weight or giving up smoking are again less important than the process you go through. You probably already know the names of pertinent organisations and if not Google can be your friend. And of course, different techniques work for different people, so specific recommendations would be ineffectual. You need to do the research to find your own perfect fit.
4. If you fall off the wagon, so what! Get back up and try again. It is only the first month of the year. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Habits take time to form and even longer to break. So try again.

Summary: prioritise and choose one New Year’s resolution; plan to work on this for the next three months ‘til the end of March 2013; ask yourself why you want to change this habit at this time; make a specific plan; if you break your plan, so what – too bad, so sad; try it again and again and …

Persistence is the clue! Good luck!

New Year’s 2013 Resolution – Part two
Have you decided which New Year’s resolution you are going to work on for the next three months? What difference will it make to your life when you conquer this? Write this answer down so you can refer to it whenever you need to. It’s going to be like a contract with yourself. By doing this, your chosen resolution is not just an idea in your head but a visual representation as well. This will reinforce the image of succeeding in achieving your goal.

Another question for you to consider is, why now? Write down your answer to this question too. What is the significance of trying to conquer this difficulty now? Has something specific happened that has made you realise you need to focus on this area in your life in order to change it for the better? Or is it just that it’s New Year and that is what everyone does at this time of year?
If you are not already beginning to achieve your goal as you would like to, here is something to think about. Why couldn’t you make a resolution at anytime of the year to achieve this goal? Why wait for New Year? What would happen if you made a conscious effort every three months to make some change in your life? The process of planning how you are going to achieve it and asking people to support you through it is the same – no matter when you do it. If you stuff up, you need to be able to say, too bad, so sad, I am going to beat this. Then you can begin again to work on the resolution.

Old habits are hard to break; new habits are hard to integrate in your life. But if you really want to meet your target, it is definitely worth the effort. The clue is to do it over and over again, until you achieve it. Hard work? Yes! But if you want to achieve it, it’s up to you. Because you are only working on one resolution at a time, it is going to be much easier to achieve. Don’t think of it as a New Year’s resolution, think of it as a step you’re taking to improve your life every day. Some days are great; some days you’ll stuff up. Too bad, so sad.

Reinforce this mantra in your mind. If I have a bad day, too bad, so sad. I am not waiting another year to start again; the time to be persistent, persistent, and persistent is now. I am committed to conquering this goal, the hard work will be worth the advantages I will have in my life by achieving this goal for myself.

Summary
Write a contract for yourself today. Include the following questions:
• What difference will it make in my life when I conquer this problem and achieve this goal?
• Why do I want to conquer this now?
• What is the significance of my timing?
• Do I have the right support people and programs to help me achieve this goal?

New Year’s Resolutions 2013

How are you going with your New Year’s resolution? Keeping to them? Or have some been broken already? Why is it so hard to keep them? Year after year, people make them; you can hear the words that hang in the air every January 1st? ‘This time I am going to achieve it, no matter what!’ Yet, before you know it, it’s back to the same old pattern and the year is half-gone. ‘Oh well, there is always next year to try again, isn’t there?’

Let’s look at four points (yes, that’s all, four) that might help at this time of year.
1. How many resolutions did you make? Okay, so you’ve decided you want to make major changes. How realistic is this? If you do it one small step at a time, you have a much better chance of making it work. Do not have more than four resolutions per year; four is the maximum.
2. Prioritise. Which one is the most important for you to achieve right now? Pick one and that is what we are going to work on first. The others will be on hold for the moment.
3. The one that you chose as your top priority will be the one on which we are going to concentrate. For three months, keeping that resolution is going to be your goal. Focus intensely on resolving this one issue ‘til the end of March 2013. It doesn’t matter what it is – whether it’s losing weight, giving up smoking, increasing study time – the process you go through is what’s important. Think about these points:
• Why now? What is it about this particular time that makes you want to change this habit?
• How are you going to do this? Do you have a plan? What is the plan? Have you joined a program like ‘quit smoking’? Do you plan to use patches to quit smoking? If weight is your concern, have you chosen a personal trainer? Are you going to a gym or signing up for some program to lose weight? The details of which group to join for losing weight or giving up smoking are again less important than the process you go through. You probably already know the names of pertinent organisations and if not Google can be your friend. And of course, different techniques work for different people, so specific recommendations would be ineffectual. You need to do the research to find your own perfect fit.
4. If you fall off the wagon, so what! Get back up and try again. It is only the first month of the year. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Habits take time to form and even longer to break. So try again.

Summary: prioritise and choose one New Year’s resolution; plan to work on this for the next three months ‘til the end of March 2013; ask yourself why you want to change this habit at this time; make a specific plan; if you break your plan, so what – too bad, so sad; try it again and again and …

Persistence is the clue! Good luck!

So you have prepared a speech and are ready for any occasion – whether formal or informal – to present this valuable information to your clientele. Fantastic! What is your next step?

How many times have you heard that content is king? I am sure you have experienced situations in which you were very excited beforehand because you had heard a particular speaker had great content. Why else would you waste your time, energy and money listening to a speech or buying some program if the information is useless to you? How many times however, have you listened to a speech with excellent content but in which the speaker addresses his audience in a monotone voice? Despite how great the content is, the sound of that person’s voice is putting you to sleep. Invariably you will disconnect mentally before re-engaging later to find you have missed important information. How is that a worthwhile investment for you: trying to stay focused on good content while fighting off the sleep induced by a terrible presentation?

If content is king, then presentation is queen. Content and presentation go hand in hand. Presentation is very important to your audience. You want them to stay awake and focused on your content, don’t you? Your aim is to get them excited, not only by what you are saying (content) but how you are saying it (presentation). It’s the inflection, the excitement, the positive or negative emotions in your voice; it’s how the content of the story matches how you are presenting it that makes it an authentic package. The audience needs you to maintain their interest, capturing their attention by how you present your speech. This in turn anchors them so they can stay focused on the content of your presentation.

If you are looking towards building a healthy business, it is not just about quality content when you present your ‘product’ to others. It is also about ensuring that your passion for your business shines through. If you love what you are doing, then there will be heaps of emotion and excitement about your product in your interaction with potential clients. Your message will come alive to your audience. Fantastic, isn’t it?

For every function you attend, whether it is formal or informal, prepare a speech in your mind beforehand. It doesn’t take long and you might get a chance to use it. If not, document it when you get home and use it another time. This way, you are always prepared for the unexpected. It is good practice for you and most of all, once people get to know you can speak well, you begin to develop your own platform.

(Part three of three)

Getting those bullies off your back

In part one, we spoke about actions step you could take to out-stride the bully. These were:

• Action step 1: Identify what the bully does to aggravate you, so you have a clear picture of what is going on.
• Action step 2: Identify if the bully is just targeting you, or everyone in general. If it is only you, why?
•  Action step 3:  Determine what direction you are going to take.  Are you just going to react to the bullying, not making any plan of attack, thereby continuing to be bullied by them. Or are you going to take action, be assertive and make a plan to be constantly one step ahead of their game, thereby ensuring that the bully no longer has the power over you.
• Action step 4: Follow these few suggestion on how to act and not to just react.

1. Be assertive to put the bully in their place.
2. Read more blogs on the subject.
3. Read ‘The Power to be Yourself’ for more details on how to out-stride bullies.
4. If the bullying is really severe, speak with someone appropriate about your situation. There’s no point in dealing with it alone.

In part two, we spoke about taking an assertive stand towards the bully by acting and not just reacting to how you are treated by the bully. In order to help you start your planning on how to out-stride your bully, I gave you a fact chart. The fact chart was for you to identify how you think about the situation and make some plans. Did you start to do this?  What was your answer to the first question?  

1. Identify how the bully is pushing your buttons? This question was aimed at giving you an idea of what the bully’s patterns are and how they think you are going to react to their torment. Your plan would include some changes in how you act, not react to them, thus throwing the bully off as they will not be able to deal with your assertive action if you are putting them in their place. Nor will they be able to push your buttons because you have now changed.
2. Become aware of your reactions to their torment. This question fits in well with the first question, because it makes you think of how you have always reacted to their bullying. It encouraged you to concentrate more on how you can become assertive and plan your life to be proactive when dealing with this person.
3. Identify how you and the other person are interacting. Is there a pattern in how you and the bully interact?  What can you identify as a problem?  Are you finding it difficult to answer these questions without your feelings being involved? Part of being bullied is that our emotions are heavily involved and one of the reasons it is difficult to deal with bullying is that our feelings are all interwoven with the events. For the moment continue to work through these questions without necessarily identifying your feelings. 
4. Plan how you intend to outsmart them. In questions 1, 2 and 3, you have been observing so far. Did you notice this when you were actually filling in the questions? Now you need to move on to implementing an action plan. What are you going to change? Can you become detached from your feelings and look at this objectively just for the moment so you can plan more clearly?
5. Make sure you implement the plan. Implementing the plan to be assertive and act will be the hardest part, as you are going to have to change your normal patterns or responses. When you change your patterns of response, the other person will react differently to you. This will be hard to start off, but you just need to practise. This is the choice: you can continue the same way experiencing all the emotions that go with being bullied, or you can change your patterns of response. It will feel uncomfortable at first, but as you get more confident it will be easier and you will achieve success. The result? No more bullying!
6. Improve your plan to ensure it is working and make changes where necessary. Fine tuning is vital as we improve in a particular area. Fine tuning to make your plan even better is an excellent way for us to continually grow as a person in that area.
7. Praise yourself where you have improved and for taking action. It is not easy making such big changes in your life, so praise yourself and acknowledge your efforts.

If you are asking why I did not answer these questions in part two – and gave you the questions only – it is because I wanted you to fill in the answers for yourself. We are all different and will get different answers to a particular situation.  I am going to give you a guide to follow. You need to work out your own answers and make your own decisions in life in order to be assertive.

Part three is all about mastering your emotions and not letting them master you.

Life is not clear cut; facts and feelings are intertwined, and we are human after all! If you experienced difficulties filling in the Fact Chart without some emotions creeping in, now is the time to acknowledge them. 

I would be very surprised if you did not feel very emotional in one way or another when you were being bullied. Emotions and feelings are natural unless they completely consume you and you feel overwhelmed by them and are unable to function as a result of constant bullying. That is why I did a feeling chart. It works the same as the Fact Chart but this time you discuss your feelings and emotions.

Why do you need to identify and be in tune with your emotions and feelings? Your emotions play a big part in bullying. You feel bad, terrible, sometimes physically sick when you go to work or school and encounter bullying. These are only some of the emotions people feel, there are plenty more not listed here. Emotions can also paralyse you as you feel   so defeated or terrible you cannot function properly, even at times not being able to go to work or school. That is why we have to be the master of our emotions and not be mastered by them.

Identify what the other person is doing that has made you feel the way you do. Do they torment you the same way each time, or is it different?  How can you act differently to this, not just reacting? What is your plan?

Identify and acknowledge your emotions to yourself.

Be honest about how you feel. If you feel negative, well that is just how you feel, so  think about it. While trying to be assertive and working through your Fact Chart at the same time, determine how you can change your emotions into positive ones. This way the bully will not be controlling you by your feelings; you are in control of your own emotions and feelings.

Review your emotions and feelings on a regular basis; deal with your feelings constructively. Work though you negative emotions feelings and make the necessary changes.  

It can be difficult to about face the situation when you are being bullied – difficult to start to plan and act instead of just reacting. So reviewing your emotions on a regular basis is an important part of being in control of how you are acting to ward off the bully. They like to see you defeated but for you, this is no longer an option. You are now in control.

Control and master your feelings; do not be a slave to your feelings or be controlled by them.

This question flows from the previous one. If you are in control of how you feel, and you have mastered your feelings by changing them into positive ones, then the bully cannot affect you. Whatever they say or do, you are now acting and thinking in a different way to them. They in turn are going to have to change their ways.

Praise yourself for any improvement you have made in turning the situation to your advantage.

You need to acknowledge to yourself that you have succeeded. It is not an easy task to outsmart a bully but then neither is being bullied.

Bullies don’t want to change; that is why you need to make a good plan to out-stride them. To change the way you think is core to the process so you can be strategic when dealing with them and be assertive by putting them in their place. To change the way you feel about the things they do or say, so that you are not affected emotionally but are totally in control, you need to be the master of your emotions.

What a great feeling to out-smart bullies, to not be affected by them and to be happy irrespective of their attitude!

You can be victimized but not a victim. Stand up for yourself and congratulate yourself.

Bullies

(Part two of three)

Getting those Bullies off your Back

In part one, we looked at three questions to do with bullying.

• What is the bully doing that aggravates you?
• How does the bully succeed in pushing your buttons to make you react?
• How do you react to the bully’s behaviours towards you?

We then looked at three action steps to help address these points.

1. Identify what the bully actually does to you.
2. Identify why the bully chooses you as a target.
3. Identify what you intend to do about it – just react to their torment without making any plans or plan your next move to beat the bully at their own game.

To take an assertive stand towards the bully, we considered some constructive suggestions on how to act and not just react.

Assuming you have decided you are not going to be pushed around by bullies any longer, you now know you are going to act, take charge, stand up for yourself and out-smart any bullies who become a nuisance to you. When dealing with people who overpower you, or with whose bad behaviour you are struggling, two things are relevant.

• what actually happens to you

• how you feel about what happens to you 

Today, we’ll address what happens to you and, in part three, we’ll look at how you feel about what happens to you.

The Fact Chart below will help you think about and answer the questions for yourself; this should put you into action mode so that you can deal with the bully assertively.  If you require more information, the book ‘The Power to be Yourself’ can be purchased on this site. It has case studies that will explain how this can be achieved in more detail.

Enjoy outsmarting those bullies! Act and plan to outsmart them; be assertive and feel the power to be free to be yourself. Don’t just react to the situation and do nothing about your situation while all the time suffering the negative consequences. Be strong; be you and be successful!

Delece Packer-Ford